Re: [Marxism] Supporting the resistance?

[Barney Katz <taxi4marx@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<snip>

> Fundamentally, the debate about how to characterize
> the resistance is a
> diversion from a much more urgent task--namely, how
> to achieve maximum
> unity around the demand for immediate withdrawal.
> Even Alan acknowledges:
>
> "Most antiwar organizations today do agree on an
> all-important demand, at
> least on paper -- immediate withdrawal of U.S.
> troops from Iraq. This is a
> solid basis for united action -- one that can be
> embraced by both activists
> who have taken the lead in challenging the
> occupation and people only
> getting started in activism."

<snip>

If socialists in the North choose to engage in the
struggle for socialism by using Iraq as their
political terrain I believe they have a responsibility
to first, ascertain the class character and political
aims of the various factions that comprise the
resistance in Iraq, and then to give their support to
those which have some chance of objectively making
progress towards socialism. I disagree that the
overwhelming priority is to demand the withdrawal of
US troops and their allies. If the reactionary,
clerico-bourgeoisie of Political Islam were to seize
power by stepping into the vaccuum caused by a sudden
US withdrawal, an enormously backward step will have
been taken.

Surely, for those of us who believe in the Marxist
maxim that the emancipation of the workers' must be
the work of the workers themselves, there can be no
more important priority than to support the
independent, secular working class organisations that
are rapidly proliferating in Iraq: the many trade
unions and trade union centres, many of whom have
themselves been the victims of so-called "resistance"
fighters, not to mention US forces.

The struggle for socialism begins at the point of
production, not on the battlefield. The Islamist and
remnant-Baathist armed "resistance" has as much to do
with struggling for socialism as does George W. Bush.
The priority at this stage should be to provide
support to independent Iraqi workers' organisations,
to strengthen them, so they will be able to defend
themselves against Islamist reactionaries in the event
of US withdrawal.

Some of these organisations include the Iraqi
Federation of Trade Unions (whose president and
secretary have, in separate incidents, been kidnapped,
tortured, threatened and released by "resistance"
fighters; another of the IFTU's activists was not so
lucky: Hadi Saleh was kidnapped, tortured, strangled
and riddled with bullets), the Kurdistan Workers'
Syndicate, the Iraqi Teachers' Union, the Iraqi
Journalists' Union, the Federation of Workers'
Councils and Unions of Iraq, and the Basra Oil
Workers' Union (which argues that its role is to
maintain independence from all political factions and
to defend Iraq's oil bounty from the US invaders).

BK





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